Northgate request sent back to zoning board

A rezoning request for the Northgate Center development has been sent back to Sunbury’s planning & zoning commission.

Several residents of the Estates at Cheshire in Berkshire Township attended the Jan. 20 Sunbury Village Council meeting for a second reading of an ordinance that would approve the application of Northgate Center development to rezone 250 acres of village land between Interstate 71 and South Galena Road from agricultural to planned commercial district zoning.

At the recommendation of attorney D.J. Young, sitting in for village Solicitor David Brehm, council members sent the ordinance back to the zoning commission, and also approved a motion to table further readings of the ordinance until it returns from the commission.

Representing Northgate at the Jan. 20 meeting were developer Pat Shively, attorney Glenn Dugger and Greg Chillog of the landscape development firm EDGE.

The Ohio Department of Transportation has determined that I-71 interchange improvements west of Sunbury would be south of the existing Routes 36/37 interchange. An intersection modification feasibility study is underway; a southern I-71 interchange would be in the vicinity of the abandoned ODOT weigh station south of the existing interchange.

Shively and his Northgate Center partners recently received a nod of approval from members of the Sunbury Planning & Zoning Commission to approve a zoning change from agricultural to planned commercial district for 250 acres of the 628 acres recently annexed into the village. Annexations during the past year extend the village as far west as 3 B’s and K Road.

Northgate’s zoning change request is for an initial commercial development east of I-71 that would connect to the village by a new road built entirely on recently annexed land — Sunbury Parkway.

Residents of Estates at Cheshire are concerned that the zoning change would not allow for a two-step development plan; that approving the zoning change would allow the development as proposed in preliminary drawings. They recommend that the zoning change proposal be remanded back to the zoning commission for adjustments – especially regarding setbacks, screening and building heights to the north of their residential development.

During a Jan. 6 council meeting and public hearing, Dugger said project designs show a big picture view, and that final uses will be determined as Northgate develops. Any final use would have to come back before the zoning commission.

Chris Rinehart, of Rinehart Legal Services, who attended on behalf of a significant number of Estates at Cheshire residents, said the proposed zoning change did not allow for a two-step development plan and that approving the zoning change would allow the development as proposed in preliminary drawings.

In other business, council members agreed to keep tabled an ordinance that would approve a development plan amendment for the portion of Sunbury Meadows east of State Route 3.

By Lenny C. Lepola

For The Gazette

Lenny C. Lepola can be reached at 614-266-6093. Email: newsguy@ee.net.